1. Field of the Invention:
This invention relates to the manufacture of sausages and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for suspending a chain of sausages, which have been twisted into links, from a bar by looping the sausage chain over the bar before the sausages are subjected to a heat treatment.
2. Description of the Prior Art:
A chain of sausages twisted into individual but interconnected links is delivered to a heat treating process upon first being suspended in loops from a bar. In order to obtain a high quality product by assuring that the sausages are heated uniformly during the heat treatment, it is required that the suspended loops of sausage be equally spaced and of the same length.
Though apparatus for forming sausages into loops are well-known in the art, all of them involve difficulties in suspending the sausage loops from the bar in an equally spaced manner. One example of such an apparatus is disclosed in the specification of Japanese Patent Publication No. 40-27509. Since the apparatus includes a smoking bar on which a sausage chain is hung directly, replacing one hanging chain for another involves less labor in comparison with the other known examples of the prior art, described below. However, since the rear portion of the smoking bar is merely inserted into a hole formed in a disk of a link looper and hangs down at an incline, the sausages are not suspended from the bar in loops that are equally spaced. This makes it necessary to detach the bar from the apparatus and space the loops equally by hand. This is a very time-consuming operation.
A second example of the prior-art apparatus is disclosed in the specification of Japanese Patent Publication No. 41-5899. The apparatus includes a conveyor chain provided with equally spaced hooks and arranged to pass near the vicinity of a conveyor pipe of a looper from which sausages in linked form are discharged. With this arrangement, each loop of sausages is suspended from one of the equally spaced hooks. In order for the sausages to be delivered to the heat treating process, the sausages must be transferred to a bar while the equal spacing between the loops is maintained. This not only necessitates the labor involved in transferring the sausages but also requires the greatest care to assure that the sausages are not damaged by the bar during the transfer. Moreover, there are occasions where the equal loop spacing is lost in making the transfer to the bar, thus requiring that the spacing be readjusted by hand.
A third example of the prior art is described in the specification of Japanese Patent Publication No. 59-50294. Here sausages are successively delivered while suspended in loops from a rotary guide shaft having a screw-like groove on its outer periphery. Though the sausage loops are suspended from the guide shaft in equally spaced form, the apparatus has the same drawbacks as that of the second example described above in that the sausages must be transferred to a bar.
Thus, in the second and third examples of the prior art, the sausages are not hung directly from the bar. In consequence, the sausage chain formed into equally spaced loops must be rehung from the bar in such a manner that the loop spacing is maintained. In the first example, on the other hand, the sausage loops are hung directly from the bar but the loops are not evenly spaced. This makes it necessary to space the loops equally by hand. These drawbacks of the prior art result in low operating efficiency.